


find the love to unfold

by cosmic_llin



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Backstory, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-15
Updated: 2016-10-15
Packaged: 2018-08-22 13:53:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8288023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmic_llin/pseuds/cosmic_llin
Summary: Leeta's new on DS9, and she wants to get to know Jadzia better.
Written for kimaracretak in the Trek Rarepair Swap.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kimaracretak](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kimaracretak/gifts).



Leeta couldn’t stop thinking about the woman – Jadzia, her name was Jadzia – with the pattern of spots scattered down each side of her face, spilling down her neck and shoulders and disappearing beneath her uniform. Was she a Trill or a Kriosian? Their markings were very similar. Leeta hoped she was a Trill. She’d always wanted to meet one.

When Leeta had seen that the bar on the space station was looking for dabo girls, she’d known that she had to get there. She’d never left Bajor before, and she’d almost never met anyone but Bajorans and Cardassians. When the Cardassians had pulled out she’d lost her job waiting on them – not that she minded – and she’d spent a while moving from place to place, not quite knowing what you were supposed to do when your planet was suddenly freed after a decades-long occupation. She had no family to celebrate with, the kids she’d grown up with in the orphanage were scattered all over the planet, and nobody seemed to need her for anything. Sometimes she found work. Other times she queued for a meal from the Federation soup kitchens that had sprung up in the major cities.

She’d heard stories of the space station, the one that used to be Terok Nor but now belonged to the Bajorans, and the Starfleet commander who’d found the Celestial Temple. People said he was the Emissary. At first people had been uncertain, but the vedeks seemed to think it was true, and after a while she started to notice that the temple services she attended – temple services, freely advertised, full of people who weren’t scared to be there! – frequently included a prayer for the good health of the Emissary. Leeta joined in with those prayers as fervently as anyone, and when she asked the Prophets for a blessing for herself, sometimes she asked for the chance to see the gateway to the Celestial Temple.

The station itself was just as much of an enticement. Leeta had spent most of her adult life waiting on Cardassians, hearing their conversation about the other species of the galaxy, and whenever she’d had access to their databases, she’d spent most of her free time reading about them. There was a whole galaxy out there of different kinds of people, and Leeta was determined to meet some of them one day.

Then she’d seen the ad. Quark’s Bar, Grill, Gaming House and Holosuite Arcade, Promenade, Deep Space Nine. Leeta had worked for hours on her application, and once she’d sent it she couldn’t concentrate on anything else. She did her interview through one of the public communications panels.

When Quark had offered her the job, she’d had to explain that she couldn’t even afford a transport to the station, but he just bought her ticket, transferred it to her and told her he’d take the money out of her wages until it was paid.

Board was included, and even though her room was small and the viewport looked inward so that she had to crane her neck to see stars instead of station, it was the nicest room she’d ever had to herself. And she had access to the entire Federation database, as much information as she could absorb and more. And she was only a few minutes’ walk away from the Promenade – not only for work, where she met people from more species in the first two days than she’d met in her whole life before, but for leisure. Her hours were long, but when she wasn’t working she could sit on the Promenade for as long as she liked and watch the people go by, and wonder who they were and where they were going, and sometimes ask them. She talked to a lot of people in those first few days.

The day she met Jadzia was in her first week on the station, but it was her second week by the time they had a real conversation. Jadzia came into Quark’s after her shift, and Leeta was behind the bar while Quark took his break.

‘It’s Jadzia, isn’t it?’ Leeta asked, as she handed the drink over. ‘Julian’s friend?’

‘That’s right!’ Jadzia said, sliding onto a barstool.

‘Do you mind if I ask you something?’

‘Go right ahead!’

‘Are you a Trill?’

Jadzia grinned. ‘I sure am.’

‘Are you joined? I mean… if that’s not a personal question?’

‘Not that personal,’ Jadzia laughed. ‘Everyone on the station knows. Yes, I’m joined. My symbiont is Dax. Why do you ask?’

Leeta leaned forward eagerly. ‘Well, it’s just that I’ve read so much about joined Trill, and I’ve never met one before. As a matter of fact, I’ve never met any Trill before. I mean… until I got to the station a few days ago, I’d hardly met anyone.’

‘It’s a little overwhelming here at first, isn’t it?’ Jadzia said.

‘But in a good way,’ said Leeta. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s incredible. So many people from so many different places! Even the Gamma Quadrant…’

‘Have you seen the wormhole open yet?’ Jadzia asked.

‘Not yet. I look whenever I go by, but I haven’t managed to catch it.’

‘What time do you get off?’ Jadzia asked. ‘There’s a survey ship scheduled to go through later this evening.’

‘I’m only working for another three hours,’ Leeta said.

‘Perfect! Why don’t I meet you when you finish and I can show you where the best view is?’

* * *

About five people had already told Leeta that the best place to see the wormhole was from a specific window on the upper level of the Promenade, but Jadzia took her to the turbolift and they headed into one of the pylons.

‘For most people, that _is_ the best spot,’ said Jadzia. ‘But there are a few science labs up here that get you a little closer, and you don’t have to compete with everyone else trying to see.’

She led Leeta out of the turbolift and down a corridor, into a large lab with a tall, curving window.

‘Look,’ she said. ‘There’s the shuttle launching. Now look right… there.’

She pointed. Leeta looked. For a minute nothing happened, and then, as the shuttle approached what looked like just another patch of space, there was a brilliant point of light, almost dazzling, and the universe opened like a flower, a blue-purple swirl with luminous gold at its centre, spiralling around itself for a few moments before blinking away again.

Leeta watched the space where it had been, dazzled. She blinked away tears.

‘That’s the gateway to the Celestial Temple?’ she said.

‘Isn’t it beautiful?’

‘I never imagined… and the Prophets… they’re in there?’

‘They sure are. You know, Commander Sisko and I discovered the wormhole together.’

‘You did? I never heard that in any of the stories about it…’

Jadzia rolled her eyes good-naturedly. ‘I guess in all the excitement about Benjamin being the Emissary, it doesn’t come up as much.’

‘Benjamin? You know him?’

‘Known him since he was an ensign, fresh out of the Academy. That was my last host, Curzon. As Jadzia, I’ve only known him for a few years. But he’s a good man. Once, he and Curzon were on a mission in the Andorian system…’

They sat and looked out at the stars, Jadzia telling stories about Curzon and her other hosts, and Leeta asking questions about all of it. She could have listened to Jadzia talk all night, but Jadzia asked her questions too, about how she’d learned so much about the Trill, and then when Leeta explained, about her other studies.

‘You know,’ said Jadzia, ‘if you wanted to study formally – sociology, maybe, or anthropology – you probably could now.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Leeta. ‘Maybe someday. For the moment I’m happy just meeting people and learning whatever interests me. I’m starting to feel like I have time to figure things out now, decide what I really want for myself. No Cardassians breathing down my neck. I can’t say the wrong thing, stand up to the wrong gul, and find myself sent up to… to Terok Nor to process uridium ore.’

She stopped, her heart suddenly pounding, and looked around.

‘A few of my friends were sent up here,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what happened to them, but I know how hard they must have been forced to work. We’d all heard about the conditions. Sometimes I almost forget this is the same place.’

‘Some of the Bajorans who came here after the Occupation ended didn’t stay long,’ said Jadzia. ‘It was too much, just to be here, knowing everything that happened.’

‘But some of them have stayed,’ said Leeta.

‘A lot have stayed,’ Jadzia said. ‘The majority of station personnel are Bajorans. My friend Nerys – Major Kira Nerys, she’s second in command of the station – she says the turning point for her was the day we moved the station to the wormhole. We used the station to protect the wormhole from the Cardassians, to claim it for Bajor, and then it turned out to be the gateway to the Celestial Temple. Now when she looks around her, she sees something that Bajorans took back from the Cardassians and made their own, with the Prophets’ blessing.

‘Actually, I think you two would like each other. I go along with her to temple services sometimes. You should come next time, I’ll introduce you.’

‘I’d like that,’ said Leeta.

In the starlight, in the quiet comfort between them, it seemed natural to take Jadzia’s hand.

‘You know,’ said Leeta, ‘the other dabo girls told me that, if someone invites you to watch the wormhole open with them, it means they’re propositioning you.’

‘It doesn’t have to mean that,’ said Jadzia. ‘But it can. Do you want it to?’

‘I want to kiss you,’ said Leeta, ‘and see what happens.’

Leeta had kissed a lot of people before, but this one felt like a small, wonderful taste of the universe of possibilities that were open to her now. Jadzia’s lips on hers meant, _you can do whatever you want to do_. Her arm around her waist said, _you’re free to choose_. And Leeta’s own quickening pulse said, _go ahead, explore_.


End file.
